at royal events.

Speaking on the Channel 5 documentary Diana to Meghan: Royal Wedding Secrets, a former butler to Prince Charles said that the Queen prefers microphones to be out of sight during speeches at state banquets. Grant Harrold predicted that the same arrangement would be in place for after dinner speeches at the wedding of the now Duke and Duchess of Suffolk.

The documentary voiceover stated: “Maintaining standards is the job of the butlers… and their boss.”

Grant then explained: “On some occasions, it is known that the Queen will even go around and check the tables. She’ll go around for a final inspection. With state banquets, she will go around and make sure that everything is how it should be. She’s quite strict with that kind of thing. She’s got a very good eye for attention to detail and there’s microphones in the flowers for when people do speeches. That’s where the actual microphones are. She always makes sure that you can’t see them.”

The channel 5 documentary is not the first programme of its kind on British television to give details of the Queen’s attention to matters audio visual. A two-hour ITV documentary entitled Our Queen at Ninety showed the Queen discussing spotlights ahead of a banquet in the Buckingham Palace ballroom and giving her approval to their positioning with the words “Yes, they’re alright” before being reassured that they will only be used for the speeches.

Discussing microphones which were hidden behind flowers in the same programme, the Queen says: “In the old days they used to march up the middle and plonk them down in front of me.”